Yesterday, I asked the question: Why do American audiences take such pleasure in reality shows filled with nasty Brits like Ramsay, Cowell, etc. For days, readers had generously suggested how I could enrich myself in African investments and enhance my penis size. Yesterday, the inbox began filling with cultural criticism. I’ll post a few compelling theories today. This comes courtesy of Alex Massie:
“To answer your question, however, I’d hazard that for some reason American TV executives are happier with the harsh judgements on success and failure being handed down in a British accent preciesely because failure has, as a concept and fact of life, been largely outlawed in American television (this is, I think, proved by any of the daytime talk shows in which someone else is always responsible for everything bad and miserable in your life). Cowell, Ramsay and the nannies are refreshing, therefore, precisely beacuse they are candid and demand that contestants or struggling parents be responsible for their actions. Their (comfortable yet sufficient) foreignness helps them do this and gives them a patina of authenticity that would denied an American presenter for whom the audience might feel little sympathy if they were seen to be too “judgemental”… A British judge, however, offers just the right mix of familiarity and distance so as to make such nastiness acceptable and, even, mildly thrilling.”
The Dish 